Advent Journal: Stars Then

The stars were so bright this morning, the air so still and cold. Imagine craving diamonds or a lover when a sky like this is just given to you! Or am I confused again about God?

Laughing at myself in the darkness – my wordiness, my devotion to inquiry, my goofy knack for stumbling into moments of clarity and bliss. Shivering under the hemlocks, loving myself in the broken way that is yet to fully heal.

It’s okay. It’s more than okay.

I come inside and make coffee and sit down to write. I am finding I am not finished with A Course in Miracles, nor with the difficulties it poses for all my relationships. It points to the Sermon on the Mount, which points to a way of being in the world that is so radical I had to have a love affair with Buddhism in order to understand it (and still, from time to time, need that serene and grounded reminder what’s what).

In the toy store Saturday, I lingered in the rocks section – the crystals, the geodes, the shark teeth, the fossils. I felt such a longing for a piece of amethyst! But typically in my life I don’t purchase crystals, they are gifted to me, or show up in odd transactions that include music. It was just funny to be in the presence of the desire to possess something, to own it, have it, keep it, call it “mine.” It’s harmless enough (buy the amethyst or don’t but for the love of Christ get on with it), but desire scales up quickly. War and oppression are not accidents but predictable effects of refusing to accept that the present moment, presently constellated, is enough. It’s not fun to trip into the parts of your mind that are insatiable, that don’t care what havoc or hell their appetites unleash. To crave is to suffer, yes, but also, to crave is to cause suffering for others. And there is – my God there is – another way.

The woman at the well showed me how to find Jesus and so I instantly made the familiar move: I forgot about Jesus, put the woman at the well on a pedestal and began writing poems for her. It’s so easy to remain confused! Jesus gives himself away but we don’t want the gift. We don’t want it because he comes not giving but asking – that we love the way he loves, forgive the way he forgives, and heal the way he heals. You get the inner peace, yes, and you get the bliss, yes, but you also get the crucifix. You understand? The crucifix isn’t literal – all of this is just a word game, a Derridean play of signs – but it points to something deep and true about the nature of love that we just don’t want to see. You have to give up everything, including giving up everything.

I remember many years ago in Burlington, Vermont throwing away a packet of love letters, thinking it was a way to let go of the pain of losing the relationship. I hurt terribly; the loneliness was indescribable. I remember looking at the letters in the dumpster where I’d tossed them – the red, white and blue of the “par avion” envelopes – and knowing instantly that nothing had changed. But in the end, that was what helped – learning that what I did with the letters didn’t affect the interior suffering at all. That insight let a little light in. It allowed me – or helped allow me – to see the relationship differently and thus, eventually, become open to new relationships, new ways of being wordy, and new ways of living together in love. I have no memory anymore of the content of those letters; I can’t recall a single sentence. We were young, under the sway of Keats and Austin, and there is nothing new under the sun. But I can still see the script – the handwriting – and something in me softens accordingly, becomes happy in a kind of reckless flowing way, and I want to share that with you. Show that to you? Is it clear then? Becoming clearer at least? What matters and what does not? I’m not asking for myself alone, and I am asking.

Let those stars, then, be my gift to you. But you’ll have to use these sentences to find them, dear. How else will I possibly remember the way?